Does Kirk need to learn to extend plays better?

[skinfan2k]

you guys act like this happens right away.  this is one of the things he was expected to grow this season. its only game 1 

[Skins_Biz]

20 hours ago, NoCalMike said:

Not here to bash the guy. It was one game against a very well coached team. Didn't think he was great, didn't think he was awful.  Obviously shaky early on but I thought recovered somewhat.

The question I am asking though is whether you feel Kirk is too much of a statue in the pocket?  The guy is no "running QB" but he isn't immobile, and he does have some athleticism.  However, I have noticed that he sits in the pocket to no end most of the time.  One aspect to beating a zone defense is extending plays and allowing your WRs or TEs to find the soft spots in the zone.  Plays have to go a little longer to develop.  I don't want Kirk to become "Crazy Legs" Cousins or anything but it would be nice if he got a little more mobile behind the line and I am not talking about drawn up bootlegs.  Sometimes it seems like he is either refusing or scared to move around or "escape" the collapsing pocket.  The obviously play is the one where he could have easily ran the 9 yards for a 1st down, but I am more just speaking in general. You have skill position players that the secondary won't be able to cover forever, but it feels like he makes up his mind to throw it so quick sometimes that there is just no hope for the play.

Contrast that with Big Ben who is a big, heavy, slow QB, but anytime he is any kind of danger he is shifting, moving, eluding, taking a couple steps this way or that way, or forward to setup a pass downfield that wasn't there just a couple seconds ago.

Of course Big Ben has what, around 100 (complete ballpark) more starts than cousins? I'm just glad we have a QB that seems comfortable in the pocket. Fine tune his throwing abilities, shake the rust off, and some coaching up on when to try and extend a play and he's golden. I feel like last night's game is more a reflection on soft practices and little preseason play than it is on Cousins ability. Yeah they'll never say that, rah rah it had no effect, yeah bull****. Logically of course your QB is going to be more comfortable if you play him a fair amount in preseason. Reps, reps, and more reps. Should he be ready for prime time? Absolutely, but the blame definitely doesn't come close to falling directly on his shoulders.

[BTBIRD 227]

11 hours ago, Veryoldschool said:

Cousins did fine last night it was a team loss due to the team great imbalance.  If Roethlisberger had played for the Skins Ben would have lost also because all the Skins can do is throw and catch, punt and kick.  The Skins cannot run, stop the run or rush the passer, or at least they absolutely failed to do anything of these things last night.

If Roethlisberger played with the Skins against the Steeler's DL that totally stifled the running game and was able to apply pressure while dropping 7 or 8 deep Ben would have been relegated to tossing short stuff all night long also.  An unbalanced team has a tough time winning football games against a good team.  The 2016 Redskins look a lot like the 2015 Redskins and I was hoping for more.

 

These statements are exactly what I was thinking during last nights game. Well said Veryoldschool.Hail

[skinsfan212689]

So coach Gruden said he doesn't believe Pitt payed 1 defensive down in man to man also cited there's tape out on KC8 and other defenses may zone up on him. 

Is this normal for a coach to admit something like this about his starting QB?

I find it rather odd. 

[SpacePenguin]

It's not that odd considering the coach is Jay Gruden. Take that how you will. I'm not sure if it's a good or a bad thing myself.

[skinsfan212689]

I hear ya. Unless he playing mind games I don't like it. Sometime you can be too honest.  

 

All is forgiven if we beat Dallas this week. 

[Mooka]

9 hours ago, Destino said:

The Redskins offense was the passing game and nothing else.  I'll take it further, on offense and defense the only thing that worked very much at all was the passing game.  The defense forced two punts and a turnover, the Steelers scored on their six other drives (5td and 1fg).  The running game for the Redskins was abandoned early because it kept resulting in third and long, or because stupid penalties put us in passing situations.  

Yet despite the fact that the only thing the redskins could do, was pass, the opinion of many was that the loss is on Kirk Cousins.  That, IMO, is a very questionable conclusion.  

 

You're attributing the passing game to Kirk though when he was actually pretty much a non-factor all game. 

Dumping easy passes to receivers underneath with no pressure aren't really positive plays by the QB. Most of our offense and all our scoring was due to our receivers ability to gain YAC. DeSean, Jordan, Crowder and Garcon were the one's responsible for our offense. 

1st FG -DeSean turned a 9yard catch into a 30 yard play. After that Kirk almost threw a pick, then threw 2 straight bad passes on 3rd down. First was a low throw DeSean was able to make a great catch on, the next was a horrible throw in the red zone where Crowder easily had the first on a curl. Inexcusable throw on 3rd down in the red zone where everything was executed but the actual throw. Should have been an easy first down which would've given us first and goal inside the 5.

2nd FG - only first down on the drive was by good YAC by Crowder.  Lich pretty much blew that drive himself single-handily though after that. 

Next drive started with one of Kirk's only good throws deep to DeSean for 30, but he followed it up with a blown timeout because we couldn't get the next play off. 100% Kirk's fault, he did not see the playclock. Drive stalled after that due to penalties, but that mistake cost us our momentum after a big play. 

Next drive Interception. Bad decision and throw by Kirk. 

3rd FG - Each reception consisted of some YAC. Drive ended with Kirk baffingly sailing the ball out of the end-zone on 3rd down when he had alllllllll day with no one near him. That was the play John Gruden replayed and was asking WTF Kirk was doing not tucking the ball and running and probably the inspiration for this thread.

TD drive - Kirk's only throw of the night through their Cover 4 zones to Garcon. Best throw of the day by far from him. Followed up by a tough catch by Crowder holding on while taking a big hit, and then Vernon Davis turning a 5 yard catch into a 20 yard play down to the 1 yard line. Nice running play to score there by Thompson btw, even if 1 yard TD runs seem trivial. Think the only run of the entire day where Pittsburgh actually thought we were passing and were caught off guard. 

Game was pretty much over by then at 31-15, even if technically that's a 2 score game. 

 

I think Kirk's performance was far worse then it seemed. Pittsburgh rarely blitzed and rarely, if ever, rushed more then 4 or 5. That one Matt Jones run for 12 yards where he made 2 defenders miss including one in the backfield was better then anything Cousins did all night IMO.

 

Hopefully something was just really off all-night with Kirk because that was a really bad performance. 

 

 

 

[Taylor703]

5 hours ago, petedaddy said:

kirk was the least of our problems last night

You can't truly believe this? He was bad and a lot of the poor plays he made were completely inexcusable. Throwing passes at the ground, missing Reed wide open in the end zone, missing Crowder wide open on a crossing route, throwing into double coverage instead of a wide open Matt Jones which resulted in an interception. However, the one thing he did that irritated me the most was the 4th and 10 run. In that situation you have nothing to lose, throw the ball to Reed and if you get picked at least you gave yourself a chance to pick up the first down. He played scared and it showed. 

 

[RedskinsLegacy]

14 hours ago, DM72 said:

 

I want to see him play good against good teams. He can't go another year without a victory over  a 500 team.

I agree, and it started looking like we could get our running game going last night, and we have to in order to beat these elite teams. The Steelers took our big plays away by sitting back all night, and other teams are going to do the same until we make them respect our running game. I won't judge our Defense because nobody could have stopped the perfect passes we saw from Ben last night. Thats what our offense could look like if we get defenses to stack the box against us, but no ones going to until we commit.

5 minutes ago, Taylor703 said:

You can't truly believe this? He was bad and a lot of the poor plays he made were completely inexcusable. Throwing passes at the ground, missing Reed wide open in the end zone, missing Crowder wide open on a crossing route, throwing into double coverage instead of a wide open Matt Jones which resulted in an interception. However, the one thing he did that irritated me the most was the 4th and 10 run. In that situation you have nothing to lose, throw the ball to Reed and if you get picked at least you gave yourself a chance to pick up the first down. He played scared and it showed. 

 

Kirk will be fine! Imagine him with the experience of Big Ben, Eli, Romo, he will be an elite QB in this league. 

[SoCalSkins]

3 hours ago, William Barbour said:

The whole narrative that Kirk hasn't beaten a team with a winning record is so dumb.

What's Trent Williams record against a winning team?

How about the Dline?

Or maybe Djax?

Matter of fact. What's the Redskins record against winning opponents in the past 10 years?

Dumb dumb dumb.

Colt's record is better. He beat a 6-1 Cowboys team on MNF that ended up 12-4. Colt would have made Pittsburg pay when they dropped 8 and rushed 3 with his legs. Colt starting and 17 million plus in cap spent on d line would be better than what we have now in my opinion.

660k Cousins versus 19M Cousins is a completely different level of scrutiny and evaluation. He needs to earn his salary eating that huge amount of cap space that leaves huge holes elsewhere.

[Taylor703]

30 minutes ago, RedskinsLegacy said:

I agree, and it started looking like we could get our running game going last night, and we have to in order to beat these elite teams. The Steelers took our big plays away by sitting back all night, and other teams are going to do the same until we make them respect our running game. I won't judge our Defense because nobody could have stopped the perfect passes we saw from Ben last night. Thats what our offense could look like if we get defenses to stack the box against us, but no ones going to until we commit.

Kirk will be fine! Imagine him with the experience of Big Ben, Eli, Romo, he will be an elite QB in this league. 

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not?

[RedskinsLegacy]

5 hours ago, skins4eva said:

I thought Kirk had as poor a game as I've seen from him.  It's particularly troubling, because I thought he had gotten past the "way-too-hyped-nervous-going-to-have-a-heart-attach" approach.  He looked totally out of sorts all night.  It almost looked like an out of body experience: he was out there on the field, but he couldn't get his mind to slow down and focus.  That's bad Kirk.  

That's called growing up, and it doesn't happen in just a season. Kirk is very young in this league and will learn what he needs to with time and experience. He has produced far more than a QB with his experience should. Our coaches are still learning for that matter, everyone of them.

[BRAVEONTHEWARPATH93]

41 minutes ago, SoCalSkins said:

Colt's record is better. He beat a 6-1 Cowboys team on MNF that ended up 12-4. Colt would have made Pittsburg pay when they dropped 8 and rushed 3 with his legs. Colt starting and 17 million plus in cap spent on d line would be better than what we have now in my opinion.

660k Cousins versus 19M Cousins is a completely different level of scrutiny and evaluation. He needs to earn his salary eating that huge amount of cap space that leaves huge holes elsewhere.

Yeah no.

 

Colt still sucks. Let's not go too crazy 

[Taylor703]

1 minute ago, BRAVEONTHEWARPATH93 said:

Yeah no.

 

Colt still sucks. Let's not go too crazy 

The only thing that irks me more than fans calling for Colt is fans wanting the team to sign Pierre Thomas. 

[skins4eva]

34 minutes ago, RedskinsLegacy said:

That's called growing up, and it doesn't happen in just a season. Kirk is very young in this league and will learn what he needs to with time and experience. He has produced far more than a QB with his experience should. Our coaches are still learning for that matter, everyone of them.

 

I hope you're right. And it's very possible you are. But I think it's odd and troubling to see him come up so small in such a big game right after he gets the big money. I think he puts way too much pressure on himself to do everything to perfection and he lets perfect become the enemy of good. 

[mexaskin]

I'm not nearly as worried about the offense as I am the defense. Our offense would have had to score touchdowns on every single drive in the second half. Yes we should be able to do more than we did but the steelers controlled our defense the entire game. We never had a short field. The steelers kept our offense off the field and ran the ball down our throats. Therefore our defense was more and more tired as the game went on. Yes the offense had problems and I'm not giving them a pass. But even if cousins had a great game could we really have outscored the steelers with that dline performance?....hell no!!

[SoCalSkins]

23 minutes ago, Taylor703 said:

The only thing that irks me more than fans calling for Colt is fans wanting the team to sign Pierre Thomas. 

I wasn't calling for Colt to start this week. I was pointing out that Colt carries 1.8M cap number this year and 3M next 2 years. Kirk needs to clearly show that he is worth the extra 17M in cap he is taking up. Week 1 was a complete failure on his part.

I doubt he has a ceiling much higher than Colt's, certainly not one that justifies eating 40 million in cap the next 2 years at this point. He needs to improve his game and sense of urgency immediately. This can get really ugly really fast.

[PapaLazarou]

2 hours ago, RedskinsLegacy said:

That's called growing up, and it doesn't happen in just a season. Kirk is very young in this league and will learn what he needs to with time and experience. He has produced far more than a QB with his experience should. Our coaches are still learning for that matter, everyone of them.

Oh come on...  He hard-balled the Front Office and balked at what they offered him because he thought that he was better than that. So now he has to prove it. No more excuses.

[mexaskin]

6 minutes ago, SoCalSkins said:

I wasn't calling for Colt to start this week. I was pointing out that Colt carries 1.8M cap number this year and 3M next 2 years. Kirk needs to clearly show that he is worth the extra 17M in cap he is taking up. Week 1 was a complete failure on his part.

I doubt he has a ceiling much higher than Colt's, certainly not one that justifies eating 40 million in cap the next 2 years at this point. He needs to improve his game and sense of urgency immediately. This can get really ugly really fast.

Come on guys.  Are we really discussing colt vs cousins after one game. Our passing game carried this team last year. Not special teams, not our running game, and sure as hell not our defense. I would love to see how well cousins plays with a running game opposing teams have to respect and at the very least a competent defense. We haven't seen that yet. But we have seen cousins make awesome come from behind wins and pick opposing teams apart. This game was no different than the playoff game last year.... we can't stop the water boy from running over our front 7 or kill us with screen pass after screen pass.

[SoCalSkins]

660k Cousins from 2015 gets a pass. 19M Cousins needs to prove his worth every single week this season. The comparison isn't Colt vs Kirk. It's Colt plus 17M in cap that could have been spent on d line vs Kirk.

[mexaskin]

6 minutes ago, SoCalSkins said:

660k Cousins from 2015 gets a pass. 19M Cousins needs to prove his worth every single week this season. The comparison isn't Colt vs Kirk. It's Colt plus 17M in cap that could have been spent on d line vs Kirk.

It's one game. Where a lot went wrong. Yes cousins looked rusty. But how do u think colt would have looked in that game. Qbs demand more money in the NFL market. We don't have Denver Broncos personnel to just start whoever at qb. I wish we did. But if u want to go with a cheaper qb you better have the defense and running game that can cover his ass. We don't. I'm grateful to have colt as our backup. I am also great full that cousins us our quarterback. Even the great ones have off days. But this is a team sport. Just like an engine it takes several components working together to create great performance. I'm just not willing to even discuss colt as our starter. We have too many other things that need work. 

[SoCalSkins]

2 minutes ago, mexaskin said:

It's one game. Where a lot went wrong. Yes cousins looked rusty. But how do u think colt would have looked in that game. Qbs demand more money in the NFL market. We don't have Denver Broncos personnel to just start whoever at qb. I wish we did. But if u want to go with a cheaper qb you better have the defense and running game that can cover his ass. We don't. I'm grateful to have colt as our backup. I am also great full that cousins us our quarterback. Even the great ones have off days. But this is a team sport. Just like an engine it takes several components working together to create great performance. I'm just not willing to even discuss colt as our starter. We have too many other things that need work. 

I think Colt would have exploited the 3 man rush with his legs and given us a more competive game. If we had let Kirk walk and had another 17M in salary on D, I think it would have been a game where we compete far better than we did 

It is a team sport. But it's a team sport with a salary cap. Cousins is getting paid like a top 5 qb. He needs to play like one period. Week in week out. He needs to show he is worth 20M more a year than Colt. That's the burden he took on when he rejected the skins offer and decided to bet on himself.

I want him to prove his value and get the next contract. That would be best case scenario for Kirk the Skins and the fans. He failed to do that last night on a national stage he has known about since April when the schedule came out.

I think we win the next 3 and enter the second quarter of the season at 3-1, but if we lose Sunday at home to a rookie qb leading a team that went 4-12 last year, it will be a circus and media/fan firestorm that will eat him alive. 

[Darrell Green Fan]

8 hours ago, RedskinsLegacy said:

I agree, and it started looking like we could get our running game going last night, and we have to in order to beat these elite teams. The Steelers took our big plays away by sitting back all night, and other teams are going to do the same until we make them respect our running game. I won't judge our Defense because nobody could have stopped the perfect passes we saw from Ben last night. Thats what our offense could look like if we get defenses to stack the box against us, but no ones going to until we commit.

Kirk will be fine! Imagine him with the experience of Big Ben, Eli, Romo, he will be an elite QB in this league. 

Sorry I don't buy this.  This was Kirk's 31st game and his 5th season.   At the same point in their careers both  Ben and Romo had  already demonstrating the instincts of a good QB, as have Wilson, Luck and many others.   On the much discussed throw out of the end zone with the 3 man rush all of these QBs move to a wide open pocket and  try to make a play. Ours gets antsy and throws it away.

I just looked at the start of the game and it's even more depressing.  The bad miss to Crowder wasn't a first and goal, it was  TD as the other defenders had their backs to the ball.  The lob to Reed in the end zone that was broken up was late.  Kirk had his feet set and ready to throw, then delayed a split second, enough time for the defemder to recover as Reed was forced to slow down. .  That can't happen.  But anyone thinking you can win consistantly with Colt McCoy is dillusional.

[MattFancy]

I've never been a big Kirk guy, but to think Colt McCoy is the answer is just crazy.

[Alexa]

Thank god some of you aren't running the team. You'd be way worse than Snyder ever was. :-)  It's week one, we got beat by a better team with a better QB. Kirk stunk, it happens. But to sit here and say we should get Jimmy G is just ridiculous. Every single QB in the league is going to have a bad game. I'm not worried about it. Kirk will get it together. We all know he can play at a high level. He's done it, he just has to go out and play football. He looked uptight and rusty. Probably needed more game reps in pre season.